About

The Rt Hon John Redwood MP

John Redwood won a free place at Kent College, Canterbury, and graduated from Magdalen College Oxford. He is a Distinguished fellow of All Souls, Oxford. A businessman by background, he has set up an investment management business, was both executive and non executive chairman of a quoted industrial PLC, and chaired a manufacturing company with factories in Birmingham, Chicago, India and China. He has been MP for Wokingham since 1987.

John was an Oxfordshire County Councillor in the 1970s. In the mid-1980s he was Chief Policy Advisor to Margaret Thatcher. He urged her to begin a great privatisation programme, and then took privatisation around the world as one of its first advocates before being elected to Parliament for Wokingham. He was soon made a minister, joining the front bench in 1989 as Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Department of Trade and Industry. He supervised the liberalisation of the telecoms industry in the early 1990s and became Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities after the 1992 General Election.

Shortly afterwards, John joined the Cabinet and served as Secretary of State for Wales from 1993 to 1995. In opposition he acted as Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1997-1999), Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1999-2000) and Shadow Secretary of State for Deregulation (2004-2005). In the 1990s he campaigned widely to keep the pound, and wrote several books and articles explaining why the Euro would be wrong for the UK. (Our Currency, our country; Just Say No).

John subsequently served as Chairman of the Economic Policy Review (2005-2010) undertaken by the Opposition. A copy of the report is available here. He has been Chairman of the Conservative Economic Affairs Committee since 2010. John stood for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1995 and again in 1997.

John was a fellow of All Souls from 1972 to 1987 , again from 2003 to 2005, and since 2007. He is currently a Visiting Professor for Middlesex University Business School and has published a number of books including ‘Superpower Struggles‘, on the European Union, China and the United States, ‘Just Say No‘ on why the UK should reject further European integration, and ‘Singing the Blues‘, his personal history of the Conservative Party throughout the last thirty years. His most recent publications are ‘I Want to Make a Difference, But I Don’t Like Politics‘, which examines the reason for the decline in membership of political parties and those voting in local and General Elections, and After the Credit Crunch: No More Boom and Bust, which considers the reasons behind the global recession and why Britain has been hit especially hard.

John is a frequent commentator in the media and is a keen cricketer and water sports enthusiast, and supports a number of different charities. He is an Ambassador for the Variety Club of Great Britain.

13 Comments

Heard you on the radio this am. Thank you for voicing what so many feel. What influence can one voice have in such a medley of disparate interests? I remember when we stood alone in 1939, and thank goodness we did!

I was reminded of “Dare to be a Daniel! Dare to stand alone! I think it was a temperance hymn which went on “Dare to stand outside a pub and take your wages home!” Perhaps not totally inappropriate. It would be good for the UK not to have to fund the European machinery.
Kind regards

Dear John Redwood
Oh dear! I see you chose to publish the above email with its inappropriate reference to 1939 when we stood up to Nazi Germany when Germany was controlled by a brutal dictator. As you said yourself Germany is now a modern democracy and we stand shoulder to shoulder to preserve the values of western Europe and our shared economies. References to 1939 are appropriate only to the speeches of popular demagogues and those who breed hatred.
Heather Pfeiffer

Reply: I refer to Germany and German as a modern democracy. I try not to censor too much on this site when others have differing v iews.

Durihg a long working life, I was careful to create a pension that would serve me in addition to the state pension once I had retired.
Due to the latest revisions in G.A.D. etc., upon the standard 5-year review, the amount I get monthly has been reduced by some 40%. !!
This is my money – I still pay tax on it – and yet the Pensions Minister (Steve Webb) decided – against the will of the whole pensions industry to reduce this by a crippling amount. This is entirely unfair, mostly to Conservative voters i.e.those who bother to save!!!
This must be something that your core voters need our M.P. to take up the cudgels for.

reply: Are you saying your pension in payment has been cut by 40% gross? If so, which scheme and why?

If this is NOT what you said then please forward the correct words to MyStory@EnglishPassport.org and the original article will be amended.

Many thanks

English Passport
Reply: The place to take my view from is this website, which contains exactly what I wrote. Anyone can see my view has been doctored, and I have written a formal letter requiring that it be corrected with an apology.

Can you please explain why the Conservatives think we will all rush out and build conservatories when people are struggling with lack of jobs and income coming in ? I know this is over simplyfing it but personally I feel somewhat let down by this government – they just do not seem to “get it” – people will not spend if they feel they wont have a job next week – it is not simplified planning that is required or big new shopping centres. They seem not to have run out of ideas but not to have had any in the first place – very disappointing.

It would be interesting to have your views on the news that HMRC is to write off £950m in ‘uncollectable’ PAYE. It has seemed to me for some time that government is incapable of handling public projects wisely or cost-effectively. For example: Home Office, unfit for purpose; border agency, unfit for purpose; rail infrastructure costs – grossly underestimated; defence procurement – massively over budget (Eurofighter etc) yet front line forces ill-equipped; IT projects – many abandoned after hundreds of millions spent; fire-stations: new build to consolidate services – now unrentable white elephants. Now the NHS, for which Mr Cameron has (ill-advisedly, in my view) ring-fenced expenditure, is seen to be sub-standard in many critical areas.

Why is no one accountable for mis-application of funds, or prosecuted where injury or death results from incompetence? In the private sector, as you are well aware, such defalcation would be heavpunished.

Why is there no mention on this page of the royal SPANKING you got from the other John… you know…. John Major, seriously his political carreer was almost dead, the country would pick anyone but him… yet still your party would rather have him than you… LOL

To my mind, it is an indictment of the Conservative Party members and leadership that you have not been given more power and influence. Since having discovered your website many months ago now, I have been an assiduous reader…

Sir, I’ve just watched you’re recent speech outlining your concerns about the ever increasing influence of the EU in our lives. I welcome the measured , succinct and irrefutable arguments you put forward. What an asset you would be to us UKIP supporters who have left our traditional parties for precisely the reasons you so eloquently outline. Please consider joining us before your worst fears are realised.

Since more than 80% of UK law is made in Brussels why does parliament still employ 650 wasteful troughers at vast expense? They have no more power than the average parish council.

Reply The last Parliament declined to cut the number of MPs when we proposed it. This Parliament has the task of restoring powers to Parliament to make the jobs more worthwhile. Parliament still has a lot more power than the average parish council!

About John Redwood

John Redwood won a free place at Kent College, Canterbury, He graduated from Magdalen College Oxford, has a DPhil and is a fellow of All Souls College. A businessman by background, he has been a director of NM Rothschild merchant bank and chairman of a quoted industrial PLC.